A sewing blog - with a bit of knitting, baking, and my life thrown in.

Friday, 14 September 2012

Socks

I've also knitted a couple of pairs of socks. I love knitting socks, just as you're getting bored of doing one thing, there's a new thing to do! And they can be as easy or as difficult as you fancy.

I love this pattern, the swirls are so pretty! It's Vorticity from the book Socktopus. The yarn is Rico Design Superba Bamboo. The bamboo makes the yarn very smooth and soft. And the stripes are so fun to knit. For more info on the yarn and pattern, my project page is here.

Now these socks are hard to photograph. There are cables and lace in there somewhere! The heel is also patterned, so it's the first time I've done a patterned heel :) The pattern is Eunice from the book Sock Innovation. The yarn is a Crazy Zauberball, I love this yarn! For more info, my project page is here.

And this is the Jaywalker pattern, a free Ravelry download. The yarn is King Cole Zig Zag, and Dom keeps calling them the dinosaur egg socks because he reckons the white and green look like dinosaur eggs. This pattern is great, very easy to memorise :) I can't wait to finish them.

3 comments:

Ashley, your post came with excellent timing as I am just contemplating my first foray into socks - they strike me as the perfect commuter knit. However I have questions! From the pics it looks like you use double pointed needles rather than a circular needle - this looks ridiculously complicated, is it fiddly or easier than it looks? Also, where did you get your amazing sock blocker things also in the pics above? x

Oh yay! Socks are great fun. Yes, for the jaywalkers I'm using dpn's. But it really depends on the socks. For the eunice and vorticity socks I used two 40cm circular needles (one needle for the sole stitches and one for the instep stitches) because they were lacey/cabled. Using two circulars means I only had to divide the stitches into two, which is easier when working lace or cables. If I had used dpn's, it would have broken up the pattern repeat. But with the jaywalkers, the pattern repeat is a quarter of the stitches so it makes sense to put them onto 4 dpn's. So it depends on the pattern as to whether I use dpn's or circulars. I hope that makes sense :) I like using both. Dpn's aren't as complicated as they look, once you've got the hang of them. I find dpn's easier on my hands, whereas I tend to get cramp when using 2 circulars! Try both, to see which you prefer :)I got my sock blockers from getknitted.com but it seems they've changed the ones they sell. Woolstack sell some like mine though :) http://www.woolstack.co.uk/search.php?search_query=sock+blockers&x=0&y=0 Also, I used these videos when I knit my first socks http://www.youtube.com/user/dorret?feature=watch Very helpful :)Ashley x

About Me

Hello! I'm originally from 'up North' in the UK, but have moved 'down South'. I have two blogs, each dedicated to a different love of mine. Jellybean's Odds and Ends is where I share my love of making things (mainly sewing and knitting), and Jellybean's Nails is where I share my love of nail polish.